Tag Archive: Masters of the Universe action figures

As we previewed here at borg.com, toymaker Super 7 featured great exclusives at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con with both an onsite presence and an offsite store featuring both a Masters of the Universe theme and a Universal Monsters theme. If you were early enough you could have even scored a pair of four different styles of limited edition Universal Monster-themed Saucony shoes. We think the best nostalgia draw from Super 7 is their multi-license classic Kenner style 3 3/4-inch ReAction figure line that we’ve covered here at borg.com since Day One. We previewed some of the latest ReAction figures in our coverage of 2018 New York Toy Fair (here), but Super 7 showcased some brand new prototypes, packaging, and exclusives this weekend.

Probably the best display featured the figures of the new Hellboy line. These two-pack sets look great in person, and will likely become only more popular as we get closer to the release of the new Hellboy movie. The Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins prototypes based on the classic arcade game were also fantastic, giving fans a look at the final pieces in the first series (back row) and the next series (front in grey) that’s underway.

Of course the next series of the original Super 7 ReAction line, Alien, looks great and the sculpts and packaging have only gotten better. We’re going to need to pick up one of those Ripley’s the Jonesy the cat at a minimum. And Kane after his attack in his spacesuit–Wow!

Below are photographs from the Super 7 booth featuring other figures from the ReAction line: the exclusive convention Universal Monsters, The Fiend and Alien exclusives, Masters of the Universe, and Robotech.

We’ve been covering the Kenner-style retro action figures being sold by Super 7 since the toy company first partnered with Funko and revealed its first line of vintage style Alien “ReAction” figures at San Diego Comic-Con 2013. At the end of 2016 Super 7 discontinued partnering with Funko and returned to manufacturing and distributing the multi-license toy line on its own. Super 7 revealed its 2018 plans for the ReAction line this weekend at New York Toy Fair 2018, with some new surprises and expansions to current action figure licenses. Projections for any toy company at Toy Fair don’t always match reality. Compare borg.com‘s coverage of Super 7 at New York Toy Fair 2017 here, and you’ll find several Super 7 action figures only now inching their way into the market. The biggest reveals at this year’s show for Super 7’s ReAction line for fans of sci-fi/horror include two beloved film classics: Alien and Planet of the Apes.

Super 7 is returning to its first pre-Funko toy line in revisiting its Alien action figures. For the next wave, characters include more refined sculpts than the early waves, with new characters Brett, Parker, and Lambert, Jonesy the cat with new Ripley, Ash with removable head, facehugger Kane in spacesuit, and a new Xenomorph head with jaws out. Although the company has previously hinted at the possibility, it doesn’t look like we’ll see figures from Aliens this year.

It’s been a year since we saw the prototypes for Planet of the Apes figures on display at New York Toy Fair 2017. Finally the first figures are now expected to be released in two months, beginning with Taylor, Nova, Zira, Cornelius, General Ursus, and Dr. Zaius in the first wave.

Super 7 must expect some good sales results with the first wave for POTA as prototypes were on display at Toy Fair for Wave 2, also, including a Cornelius in astronaut suit, ape warriors and another ape general, a giant Lawgiver statue set, and the mutants from Beneath the Planet of the Apes with removable outer heads to reveal those (gross) inner-heads as seen in the movie.

For the Super 7 Universal Monsters license, it will revisit past ReAction figures (The Phantom of the Opera, Wolf Man, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon), while adding some new ones, including the Metalluna Mutant and the Mole People.

Netflix is now carrying a new documentary television series that delves into the creators behind some of our favorite toys from the recent, and not so recent past. The Toys That Made Us features four episodes in its first season of streaming, each focused on a toy line that should bring in a good cross-section of fandom. The choices for the first shows include Kenner’s vintage Star Wars action figures and playsets, Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, with an emphasis on the 3 3/4″ line of action figures, Mattel’s Barbie, and the Mattel’s Masters of the Universe. No doubt Barbie and G.I. Joe should pull in the older crowd, while the latter half of G.I. Joe and Star Wars will pull in the kids of the 1970s and early 1980s, and Masters of the Universe the kids of the 1980s.

Not a show for kids and not another show about toy collectors, the series devotes plenty of each hour to interviews with designers, marketing, other businessmen discussing the nuts and bolts of negotiating deals, like the lawyer for Kenner discussing the greatest toy deal negotiation ever, and the later not-so-great negotiation because of a loose-lipped CEO. The Barbie episode features a Barbie expert continually bashing the character as a “hooker” as if she has some sort of love-hate relationship with the doll. But the politics of toymaking is interesting fodder for the right audience. Should it be a surprise that toymakers have the same ugly corporate politics, the downsizing, the layoffs, and the takeovers, like every other company? Prepare yourself for several CEOs and designers as they tiptoe, or not, around decisions and employers they wrestled with in the past as toys and brands came and went. The creators look back both with nostalgia and anger at the former toy companies that eventually terminated their employment. So look for an unusual take on these toys and these companies.

The next four episodes will be launched on Netflix later this year, and include Hello Kitty, Transformers, Star Trek, and LEGO. Sometimes what the show chooses to tell is as interesting as how the show tells it. The eight toy lines chosen no doubt came from the producer’s own focus groups, like the ideas behind some of the toys they discuss. If The Toys That Made Us really is a one-time thing, someone else should come along and continue the idea with all the other major brands and influences.

We want to see an episode on Marx toys, including little toy soldiers and the 12-inch action figure series. We also want to see a history of the broad Mego line of figures, Hot Wheels, Stretch Armstrong, and Big Jim. How about companies like Fisher Price, Playskool, Playmobil, and Radio Flyer? A series like this needs to cover more “recent” but still classic toy lines, too, like My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, Strawberry Shortcake, and figure out a way to capture famous classic toys like Spirograph, Tinker Toys, Play-Doh, Etch-A-Sketch, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, and the ultimate multi-license toy, Viewmaster. How about a tour of the Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers factories of the past? Who put out more great board games than these companies? It’s easy to imagine entire episodes on the history of games like Clue/Cluedo and Monopoly. And how about featuring a current game company that’s been around for decades, like Wizards of the Coast?

At New York Toy Fair 2017 Super 7–formerly partnered with Funko–proved yet again that no other toy company compares when it comes down to sheer volume of licenses it holds, and the company continues to venture into the obscure and retro as shown in its line of ReAction, classic 3 3/4-inch Kenner-inspired action figures we have covered here at borg.com since day one. We’ve seen Alien, Arrow, Back to the Future, Big Trouble in Little China, Breaking Bad, The Bride of Frankenstein, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Crow, The Dark Crystal, Dracula, E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, Escape from New York, The Fifth Element, Fight Club, Firefly, The Flash, Frankenstein, Friday the 13th, The Golden Girls, The Goonies, Gremlins, Halloween, Hellraiser III, The Invisible Man, Jaws, The Karate Kid, Masters of the Universe, The Mummy, The Nightmare Before Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Phantom of the Opera, Predator, Pulp Fiction, The Rocketeer, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Scarface, Scream, Star Trek, Suicide Squad, Taxi Driver, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Tomorrowland, Trick or Treat, and The Wolfman.

With Planet of the Apes you’ll see Cornelius, Zira, Taylor, an Ape Soldier, and General Ursus. With Robotech, at least six VF series robots, six Shogun figures, Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and several villains from Batman ’66, as well as the classic Batmobile. Hellboy features Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz, and Lobster Johnson.

Let’s start this year’s borg.com Hall of Fame ceremony by talking a little about who is NOT in the Hall of Fame who might come close if borgs were more loosely defined. We still haven’t included the non-organic: like automatons, androids, or robots. Think Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation before he met the queen in Star Trek: First Contact–despite his perfectly life-like appearance. For the bulk of the series Data was always an android, not a cyborg. He’s just a highly advanced C-3PO–until First Contact.

Droids from Star Wars,Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still,Robot B-9 from Lost in Space or Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet, the Autobots and Decepticons of Transformers, the police force of THX-1138, Box in Logan’s Run, the perfectly human appearing kid-like star of D.A.R.Y.L., the several automatons of episode after episode of The Twilight Zone,Beta in The Last Starfighter,Tron and Flynn and the other microscopic, human-like bits of data in Tron, Hellboy II’sGolden Army, the future Iowa Highway Patrolman in Star Trek 2009 (we assume he’s just wearing some police safety mask), Rosie the maid in The Jetsons,Hogey the Roguey from Red Dwarf,Marvin the Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, X-Men’s Sentinels, Lal and Juliana Tainer from Star Trek: The Next Generation, the title character of CHAPPiE, or Iron Giant, despite their human-like or bipedal nature, none are actual borgs because they lack biological matter, living cells, or the like.

The same applies for the robotic hosts in Westworld–Michael Crichton’s original was clear these were merely automaton robots and we’ve seen nothing from 2016’s HBO series to show that has changed (even the NY Timesgot it wrong). Which explains why The Stepford Wives aren’t on the list, or Fembots, either from The Bionic Woman or the Austin Powers series, or the Buffybot in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So who’s in?

Here is Round 4, the twenty-eight 2016borg.com Hall of Fame honorees, in no particular order, some from 2016 and others from the past, bringing the roster count to 134 individuals and groups:

First up is Time, yep… Time itself. From Alice Through the Looking Glass, a powerful Father Time-esque human/clockwork hybrid who rules over Underland–

From George Lucas’s original Force-wielding character as envisioned by Mike Mayhew: Kane Starkiller from Marvel Comics’ alternate universe story, The Star Wars:

The Major, from 2017’s Ghost in the Shell:

Max Steel got his own movie in 2016:

Steel hails from the Mattel action figure who received multiple super powers due to an accidental infusion of nanobots:

Cave Carson from the update of the classic DC Comics comic book series spelunker, the new series Cave Carson has a Cybernetic Eye:

Although he was a charter member of the borg.com Hall of Fame, Darth Vader returned in Rogue One, providing some new images of the classic borg:

San Francisco-based toy company Super7 announced several exclusives this week that the company will be offering at San Diego Comic Con later this month, including a giant Haunted House to be used with their 3 3/4 inch action figure line with Funko toys. Super7’s biggest playset so far, the Haunted House is designed to fit any and all 3 3/4 ReAction figures and classic Kenner figures. Measuring in at a whopping 25” wide and 20” tall, the three-story mansion is packed with trap doors, concealed entrances, hidden rooms and secret passages.

Super7 spent almost an entire year developing this playset to match the vintage cardboard playsets of the 1970s. Loaded with over 60 individually painted panels and countless custom double-pass die-cuts on both sides of every board, the Haunted House may look simple, but this was the most complex toy Super7 has ever produced. Available exclusively from Super7, the Haunted House playset will be available for $75 each, limit one per person at SDCC booth #4945 (action figures not included). Look below for close-up photos.

Super7 will also be offering two Nightmare Before Christmas action figures, and a four-figure Universal Monster monster playset including a crypt. Super7 will also be offering a Masters of the Universe prototype set, available only at Skeletor’s Lair during SDCC at 701 8th Ave., San Diego, CA 92101.